Mariposa

It's that time of the year! I have beautiful butterflies flying around my Texas size lantana.








There was another one, but the pictures for that one did come up very good. :( I'll try again later.

Yellow Pants

Everything in my garden is colorful! Including the bugs.



The pollen made the bee's legs yellow. So cute!



Hey, Mr. Bee! Where did you get those yellow pants?
I got not answer, it won't talk when working.

July First

At my garden after church.




This weekend was really hot in my area. I took the kids to Water Country, the best thing to do on a hot weekend. We could of have gone to the beach, but I'm pretty sure it was packed. It gets so crowded, that it's hard to walk!

We also got some crazy thunderstorms! The power went off for a minute, but thank God, it came back soon. It's not good to be without air conditioning on a 100+ degree temperature.

I'm also grateful that there was no damage to my home! I got some friends that had to spend their weekend cutting big logs from the trees that fell on their yards. One of my friends posted a picture of a tree that almost fell on their home! Thank God that tree was not taller, it would of done some big damage!

(Life got me busy, this is my post from the weekend of July 1rst.) But you still love me, right? =)

Flowers and Fury

When taking pictures of flowers I caught a picture of my dog, Oreo, getting upset with some passing byers. She is very protective. And doesn't care what size the person or dog is!

Sometimes I call her Night Fury, I think she looks a lot like Toothless, the dark dragon from the movie How to train your Dragon. 

Black Eyed Susan

I didn't plant these Black Eyed Susans! They came out by themselves at my back yard.

 Last week when I cut my grass. I had to go around them, feel bad to cut them.

But I made a deal with kids. I do what ever I want in the front yard and they keep the back yard for themselves. They haven't say anything, yet. But if for some reason a ball brakes them, I can't say anything!! It's their back yard! LOL.

Visa

This is how my garden looks like these days.
 

Lately is been the lilies time to show off. But I think this is one of the last lilies, that I was expecting to bloom. When I got it, the label for it said that it's name was Visa.

 

There is, or was, :(  a red day lily that usually blooms in the middle of summer. But I don't know if I'll get to see it this year. The lily I'm talking about is soo beautiful, and because I liked soo much, I think that I over separated and it might just died.

This happens a lot when I get greedy.

 Over separating plants kills them!!

Bumblebee

Bumblebees are cute and fun to watch them fly from flower to flower.

They may look scary, but they wont do anything. I water the plants, pick out weeds and deadhead  flowers right beside them and never have they stung me.
 

 They are not any ordinary bug, they even got their own song!

 

June

I have a big show going on at my garden. The black-eyed sussan is blooming like crazy. I think it is competing with the lilies!

When I Move Plants

Today was a rainy day. If I had plans for the weekend I would be a little bummed. Not this time, I was glad when I saw the weather forecast, raining on saturday. I started to move plants friday, but I get tired easily and had to slow down. And I made plans to wake up early, and didn't happened. I still used as much time as I could before the rain.

Moving plants the day before or on raining days, is the best time to do it. I believe that there is something in the water from the clouds, and not being sunny, that helps the plants not get in shock.

Sometimes, if I have the energy, I get a rain coat and move plants when it's raining! I know! I had some teenager neighbors that looked at me sideways. They probably called me the cuckoo plant lady! I don't blame them! It's weird to see someone gardening in the rain.

Me on friday, with a foxglove in my hands, they look like big lettuces.

I try to keep my hands clean. I started with gloves, but they get on the way! And in the middle of gardening I took them off.

Crabapple Tree

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My crabapple tree is having its spring show! I took some pictures, only about 100, not to many :).

I uploaded them on Facebook. And if I get a chance I'll share some in here later.

A picture of me, I can stay the whole day looking at it!

For Now

It's that time again! Daffodils blooming!

I have a big show of these yellow flowers all over my garden. But I will wait to show the pictures. Because by the time I decide which picture is the best to upload, I already took another picture that I think will look better.






Almost all the buds are open, so I think these are the best pictures of daffodil flower buds.

Crocuses

Here is how my crocuses looked like in other years. It was my first time planting bulbs. I had seen many pictures of groups of bulbs looking better than when they were planted separate. And I didn't have experience with flowers from this zone.



Also, not all the bulbs are planted the same dept. Tulips, daffodils, and irises are planted deeper than crocuses. That's why I didn't think about overcrowding issues. And neither did I think that bulbs reproduce!



I loved how they came out the next year. And friends that saw my garden liked to see the groups of blooming bulbs.



It was the time when the kids were younger, school was easy to do, and they didn't want to go here and there. It was perfectly fine to just play in the backyard. I had all that time to get really creative in the garden. I even put red mulch!

I think that white is not a very common color for crocuses, but in other years I even had white crocuses!


Now, fast forward to this year. I had to go searching for crocuses! And I almost didn't find any!

2012
I'm writhing about them, to say that I know crocuses and that I have planted them. But this year I didn't get too many crocuses. And I will show you pictures from 2009. It might sound like living in the past. I think I'll get away with it, because you like me?

2012

Crocuses are one of the first flowers to bloom in my garden. They bloom at the same time or a little after the Lenten Rose. In this picture from 2009, there are still leaves from the fall of the year before.
It's nice to see them in the middle of the grey and brown winter. It's like hope of life among dead. I miss my crocuses!



I think I learned my lesson, but I will make a little list of what NOT TO DO when planting crocuses.

1. DO NOT plant them too close with other bulbs. I think the other bulbs suck all the nutrients and leave nothing for the crocuses.
This picture, from 2009, shows all the bulbs I put in one hole. I put tulips, irises and daffodils, To many of them!

2. IF I WANT beautiful little flowers in the beginning of the blooming season, I should plant some bulbs in the fall.


3. I SHOULD fertilized them in the fall. That way they would have enough nutrients for the many other bulbs I put in the hole. ( If I happen to ignore #1. I better not!!)



These two pictures are from the same spot.

2009

2012, Only one crocus bloomed!

All the pictures are from 2009, except the ones that have 2012 on the top.

Lenten Rose

The Helleborus Orientalis or Lenten Rose it's the first plant to bloom in my garden. It blooms in the winter! I had always wanted to have one of them. But I didn't know how to take care of them and didn't know which one to get. There are many different colors of them!Until one day my friend Ali and I exchanged plants. She came to my garden and picked the plants she wanted. Then I got to go to her garden! I was surprised to see this plant. And was a little shy to ask for it, but I was there to get whatever plant I wanted, so I asked for it and she gave it to me.Since she has been gardening the Lente Rose for a long time, she gave me some advised of how to take care of it. According to her, this plant does good in the shade and doesn't like it to be moved. It will take a long time to recover. I decided to plant it in a corner where it gets plenty of shade. It has been there since, and I don't think there is a better for it. Besides, that corner used to be boring. But now it has a couple of colorful plants that makes it attractive, including one that blooms in the winter.She gave it to me at the end of spring. The plant was done blooming for the year. I had to wait to the next spring to see what color it was. I'm really happy with the color, or colors, because some of the flowers are white and others are pink. The only thing I'm not so happy about the Lenten Rose is that, the beautiful flowers don't turn up they turn to the ground!
It is good to cut the old branches at the end of summer or fall. But I didn't do that last year. Here are the before and after pictures.

Before, messy with last year's old branches.



And the after picture. All cleaned up, with only this year branches. It looks so much better!

The One With Lots of Flowers

After I give my address to someone that wants to visit me, I tell them that I live in the house with a lot of flowers. And that's what they do. When they get to my street, they look for the house with lots of flowers.

The problem is that there's another lady in my street, with a front yard full of flowers! Her name is Ali. And I think she does the same thing. She tells people that she lives in the house with lots of flowers. Because people come to knock in my door and ask for Ali! I don't mind telling then where she lives, but her friends like to come really early. They wake me up!

Her friends are morning larks, I'm a night owl!

I Didn't Plant That!

Those purple little leaves and flowers look really good with my about-to-bloom daffodils. I don't know the name of that plant and I didn't plant it. It's a weed!I put a lot of good stuff in my soil for the plants that I place there on purpose. And when I stop pulling out the weeds that come out of the nowhere, they take advantage of my good soil and grow really fast. I need to start coming out of the house and pull out all the weeds and grass that are taking over my garden.

Confused Plants

Here I go... again.

I want to start posting about my garden again, I know I have tried other years and didn't keep up with it. But I'll give it a try one more time.

I'll start with these pictures from January.

Because the mild winter in our area, some plants kept blooming through December and January. We did have some days that were really cold and the flowers and buds got flash-frozen.

This weather got the plants confused. The Cone Flower stops blooming in October - November, but this not this year, this is a picture of the burn buds on January.

There are some plants that are close to the schedule, like the Dahlia. This is how all the plants should be looking in January.